Oh, But Be Prepared To Bleed
by Jenn1984
Summary: A collection of scenes centering around the lives of Don and Charlie Eppes. Lots of whump. No slash.
1. Paper cut

For MusicalLuna, who wanted Don to get a paper cut.

Thanks to Petra for looking it over and fixing my dumb sentences. I sort of love you. :P

Most of these will have some form of whump in them, only because that's what Luna likes most. And she basically gets whatever she wants from me when it comes to fic ;D

Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs.

* * *

"Charlie, would you snap out of it?!"

Don is loud because Charlie refuses to listen, and it's _frustrating_. He doesn't care that Charlie's office door is wide open, or that he's inviting curious glances from the people walking slowly past the door. A few students stop to ask if the Professor needs help, but Larry hears the commotion and ushers them all away.

"I'm just going to close this," he practically whispers on his way out. Don doesn't even acknowledge him because Charlie mumbles something about probability again and, God, he just won't _stop_. He paces back and forth in front of the window while clutching a small book between his fingers, knuckles white with tension and palms moist with sweat.

One hand on his hip, the other pinching the bridge of his nose, Don sighs. "Look, I know I'm asking a lot here, but I need you to do this for me, okay? Charlie?"

He reaches out to touch Charlie's arm and his brother jerks violently and swats Don's hand. "Just-just don't," Charlie hisses.

Don cracks.

"All right, that's it," he snaps and grabs Charlie's book, pulling hard. "Would you listen to me?!"

Charlie struggles against Don's grip, twisting sharply and yanking the book down. Don pulls a hand back and curses as Charlie watches a small red droplet hit his office floor.

"Oh God." Charlie drops the book from his shaky hands and falls into the brown leather chair behind him.

Don shakes his head while sucking on his bloody finger. "No, don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry, Don. I'm sor-I'm really sorry." Charlie runs a hand through his curly black hair. His eyes are tired, red and glassy, Don notices.

"Look, Buddy," he says as he sits in the chair next to his brother. "It wasn't your fault. None of this was, you hear me?"

Charlie swallows hard. "If I had just-" he starts. His mouth moves without words for a moment as a few curls fall over his eyes. "I don't know, I must have done something wrong. A miscalculation somewhere..." Charlie's voice cracks and he trails off, Staring at nothing.

"You can't do this to yourself. You can't go back and second guess everything you did, you know?" Don pats him on the shoulder, leaving a small drop of blood on his white dress shirt. "It'll eat you up."

Once he's found his voice again, Charlie looks up and whispers, "She was only 15, Don."

Don can't justify it, so he just nods.


	2. Downfall

Again, for MusicalLuna. Because she's adorable even when she's yelling at me to write her something.

I own nothing.

* * *

"Yo, Chuck!" Don calls as he pushes open the door to the garage. Wood collides with metal and cardboard as a steady rain of plaques, books and boxes fall onto his head. "Shit!" Don cries and holds up his hands to protect himself, but the damage is done; his head is throbbing, and it doesn't take a seasoned FBI agent to figure out what's trickling down the side of his face.

"Watch out for-!" comes too late and Don can hear Charlie hiss loudly from the other side of the cluttered room.

Don bends over and tries to steady himself , dizzy from the assault. He stumbles against the bookcase in front of him.

"Don!" he hears, but he's afraid to open his eyes. "Oh, he's bleeding!"

"I'm fine, Charlie," he mumbles.

"I'll go grab a wet towel."

Don tries to roll his eyes and stops himself before he makes the nausea worse. Charlie rushes past him, squeezing through the door, and Don feels a pair of cautious hands guide him to the couch.

Once he's able to open his eyes, he looks up to see who else was in the room. "Jeeze Larry, what the hell are you two doing anyway?" he asks, annoyed.

Larry wraps a hand around the side of his face and shakes his head a little. "Well, Charles and I thought this room would better serve him by rearranging a few things for maximum space. We weren't expecting anyone at this hour."

Eyes closed again, Don sighs. "Yeah, well, I guess it was bad timing on my part."

"Actually-"

Don groans. Here it comes.

Charlie gingerly presses the wet towel to his brother's head with a mumbled "sorry" before continuing his lecture.

"The probability that you walked in at that precise moment..."

With another sigh, Don tries to tune his brother out and focus on the cool towel against his skin.


	3. Frantic

I own nothing. Enjoy :)

* * *

Charlie's office rolls around in circles behind dancing black spots as Don staggers backwards. He hits the door frame and steadies himself.

"Oh, Don! Oh!"

Don puts his hand to his face and tries to shake off the blow, but she hit him _hard_.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't realize that was you at the door!" Amita cries excitedly, reaching hesitant hands to his shoulders, afraid to touch him.

"Yeah," Don croaks. He clears his throat and looks at the book she dropped to the floor. "Is that, what, the biggest book in this office?"

Amita shrugs sheppishly. "Yes, actually," she says weakly. "I'm really sorry, Don."

Don shakes his hand in front of her. "Don't worry about it. Hey, look, have you seen Charlie? I could use a little help with something."

Her face falls and Don squints at her as he pushes against his nose to see if it's still there. Instincts finally break through the shock of being slammed in the head. "Amita, why're you waiting at the door to hit someone with a book?"

She's going to cry. "I was going out to my car when some man approached me, and he was asking me all these personal questions that made me really uncomfortable and then he grabbed my arm! I hit him with my laptop and ran back here and Charlie was-"

Don cut her off. "Amita, Amita," he says as he steadies her arm and cuts off her frantic rambling. "Where's Charlie? Amita, where's Charlie?"

Amita sniffles and points out the door. "He went after him."

Don's stomach suddenly hurts more than his head.


	4. Until the end

Just another random drabble. Enjoy.

* * *

Don stares at the empty driveway with a growing fear that spreads out into his fingertips. This kind of thing isn't uncommon in his line of work, yet he's never felt this way before. In all his years in law enforcement, he's never felt this helpless.

"Don?"

He can't look up, he can't break away from the pavement where it all went down. Soft hands massage his shoulders and Don finally turns to Megan, who is standing at his side with frustrated lines etched between her eyes.

"We didn't find a note," she says coolly, careful not to look him in the eye. He can tell.

The sun is hot on their backs but Don still shakes as the realization that his brother was taken _right underneath his nose_ drills its way through his throat.

Charlie is gone. The words throb into his skull, painfully reminding him that he has failed his only brother.

"Maybe-" Megan begins, startled by Don's ringing cell phone.

Don sniffles loudly and flips his phone open. "What?" he says sharply.

There's a crackle of static, then, "Don...it's me."

Suddenly, Don's eyes burn. He stares hard at Megan and makes circular motions with his fingers. "Charlie? You hurt, buddy?"

Megan bolts up, cocks her head and starts to walk the perimeter of the house.

"I'm not hurt. Listen, Don, don't try to-"

There is struggling on the other end of the line and he starts to panic. "Charlie? Hey, Charlie!"

"No, just-let me-no!"

Don's breathing grows frantic. Then a new voice, deep and weary, floats through the receiver. "Is this Eppes?"

The rage kicks in. "Listen, you son of a bitch, if anything happens to him-"

"I know, I know, you'll kill me. Look, spare me, would you? It's been a long day."

FBI agents continue to circle around the house as Don's unease starts to bubble in his stomach. "What do you want? Just tell me."

"That, agent," the tired voice replies, "you can't give me. Your brother, though, just might be able to. I promise to give him back when I'm done."

Don sucks in air that chokes him. "We're gonna find you, you have to know that. I'm not gonna let this go."

The man pauses, then lets out a long breath. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

He hangs up, leaving Don to stand in the middle of the empty driveway, suffocating slowly with each passing second.


	5. Loss of consciousness

Books and papers laid scattered all over the coffee table along with thick markers, multi-colored sticky notes and about half a dozen laptops that Don was intent on snapping shut. Charlie had almost died today, a thought that wasn't settling well inside of him.

"Charlie, you're done with this. End of discussion." He managed to pull one laptop away and close another, only to have Charlie reopen it right behind him.

"Stop trying to tell me what to do. You can't force me to stop, I can't just stop! It's in my head, I need to get it out!" Charlie practically begged, his voice still cracking hours after a suspect had him in a choke-hold long enough to stop his breathing for a few seconds.

"You lost consciousness!" Don cried.

"Yes," Charlie rasped, grabbing the laptop out of Don's hands, "and now that I've regained it, I need to take a look at these algorithms-"

Don had heard enough. "Charlie!" he yelled close to his brother's face. Charlie's whole body shook at the force of it and he snapped his head up. They stared at each other for a minute.

Charlie spoke up first. "I have to," he whispered. His eyes were pleading, a look Don had given in to so many times before.

So many times that hadn't almost ended in his brother's death.

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger along his eyes and sat down on the couch with a defeated sigh. "I can't let something like this happen to you again, Charlie, you have to understand that." Don looked up with the same plea in his own eyes. "I can't live with that."

Charlie walked slowly over to the edge of the couch and sat down next to Don. His eyes were searching something unknown, rapidly moving back and forth, as Don waited to hear his brother's thoughts.

Charlie opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking up. "I know," was all he said.

Don shook his head. "You almost died, you know? What would happen to Dad?" He could see Charlie thinking, and he swallowed hard. "Or me? I can't let you risk your life like that."

Charlie huffed and half-grinned. "That's exactly how I feel about _you_ every day."


End file.
